It’s the Out In Africa Pride Film Festival on at Nu Metro Monte Casino from the 6th to the 8th March 2009. Here is the schedule of movies and a short synopsis of each:
Fri 6th 18:45 pm The Amazing Truth about Queen Raquela
20:30 pm I Can’t Think Straight
22:00 pm Otto; or Up With Dead People
Sat 7th 16:00 pm The Marching Season
17:30 pm The Amazing Truth about Queen Raquela
19:15 pm Mulligans
21:00 pm Otto; or Up With Dead People
Sun 8th 18:00 pm Mulligans
20:00 pm I Can’t Think Straight
Dir: Grace Chapman, Emma Jones
UK 2008 60min
In 2006, in the new and supposedly democratic EU state of Latvia, the Gay Pride parade was banned. In 2007, the organisers persevere and this ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary charts the events surrounding Latvia’s first officially sanctioned Latvian Gay Pride parade in Riga. This fascinating exposé reveals how members of the LGBT group Mozaika organise the event despite escalating threats from religious fundamentalists and the curiously-named neo-Nazi homophobic ‘No pride’ organisation. The film juxtaposes the Riga parade with coverage of the 2007 London Pride drawing parallels with the fight for LGBT rights in 60’s and 70’s Britain. The Marching Season is an absorbing insight into a country where a chilling Soviet-era mind–set still permeates, and a timely reminder of the reasons why we march.
Dir: Olaf de Fleur Johannesson
Iceland 2007 80min
Based on the real life of Filipino transsexual prostitute Raquela Rios, this winner of the prestigious Teddy Award (Berlinale 2008) is part documentary, part fantasy, often filled with wry humour, always telling. Playing herself, Raquela introduces elements of her life inter-woven with fiction. She spends her days working as a prostitute and dreaming of meeting Prince Charming. The Prince, of course, will sweep her off her feet to Paris and a life of luxury. Just to make sure that the Prince is virtually out there, Raquela trawls the Internet for suitable candidates, and lands the job as a webcam host on a transsexual porn site. Michael, the owner of the website, pays for Raquela to go Iceland to stay with her transsexual internet friend Valerie, and then meets her in Paris. But is Michael a Prince or a Toad?
Otto; or Up With Dead People
Otto; or Up With Dead People
Dir: Bruce LaBruce
Germany / Canada 2008 94min
From the lens of cult Canadian filmmaker Bruce LaBruce (Super 8½, Hustler White, The Raspberry Reich) comes a ridiculously ironic, low-budget film. As ever, La Bruce questions the divides of art, life and porn, and throws in some irreverent tongue-in-cheek references to sex, violence, Marxism, Capitalist consumerism, suicide, and AIDS.
This gay Zombie "film within a film" features Otto, a newly undead zombie who stumbles woodenly around Berlin seeking meaning for his un-life. He meets up with Medea, a melancholic director who casts him in her political shlockumentary which reveals the burgeoning "plague’ of homosexual zombies growing in the city. The characters of Otto and Medea are hilarious and Medea’s girlfriend Hella, a black and white flickering silent movie character is a wonderfully witty touch.
Dir: Chip Hale
Canada 2008 92min
A Mulligan, in golfing terminology, allows a player a second chance to perform a certain move or action. Golf fanatic Tyler Davidson comes home for his college vacation with his new best friend Chase in tow. His family welcomes Chase into their summer routine - playing golf, having barbeques, going to parties and hanging out at the beach in their charming small American town. Chase eventually decides to come out to Tyler and this revelation sparks off a series of events that make for a shockingly different summer than the one Tyler envisioned for himself and his family, particularly his father.Beautifully-shot and filled with gorgeous sun-drenched scenes, the film thoughtfully and sensitively explores issues around friendship and love and acceptance of others and oneself.
Awards:
Q Cinema Film Festival – Fort Worth, Texas – Audience Award
Q Cinema Film Festival – Fort Worth, Texas – Best Film
Pittsburgh International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival – Audience Award
Dir: Shamim Sarif
UK 2007 80min
From the Indian/South African director and writer of World Unseen comes a light cross-religious lesbian romantic comedy with a twist of cultural conflict. At the party for her fourth engagement, London-based Jordanian-Christian Tala meets Leyla, the guarded Indian-Muslim girlfriend of Tala’s friend Ali. Despite the thin veil of social propriety, chemistry sparks between them. However, the girl’s mutual naiveté and emotional confusion ensures that it remains unacknowledged by either until they meet for the weekend in Oxford. The approaching wedding and descending relations throw a spanner in the fledgling romance, and they must separately face up to the weight of their cultural, religious and parental expectations – especially those of their dragon mothers.
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